The present invention relates to apparatus and programs for displaying and editing score data to be used for automatic performances.
There have been known techniques for causing an automatic performance apparatus to execute an automatic performance of a music piece using a score data set that includes a plurality of note data indicative of pitches, sounding periods of musical sounds included in the music piece. Also, score data displaying/editing apparatus have been known which display and edit a score data set to be used for an automatic performance.
Among various known score data displays employed in the score data displaying/editing apparatus is one called a “piano roll display”. On the piano roll display screen, bar-shaped pictorial figures, corresponding to sounds represented by individual note data, are placed on a coordinate plane having an axis representative of sound pitches and an axis representative of the passage of time. User can know pitches and sounding periods of the individual sounds, on the basis of positions, in the pitch axis direction, of the corresponding bar-shaped pictorial figures and positions and lengths, in the time axis direction, of the same pictorial figures. The note data included in the score data set each include various types of data in addition to the data representative of the pitch and sounding period, and the score data displaying/editing apparatus can not only display but also edit these various types of data included in the note data.
In Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. 2001-306067, for example, there is disclosed an apparatus which is constructed to not only display pitches and sounding periods of note data by a piano roll display but also display and edit lyric (words of a song) data to thereby associate the edited lyric data with sounds represented by the note data. Further, from Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. 2002-202790 etc., there has been known a technique which causes a singing synthesis apparatus to automatically sing a song using a singing score data set including lyric-related data.
When a user wants to edit given data included in a score data set, there is a need for the user to ascertain correspondency between the given data and other data included in the same note data as the given data. Further, in this case, the user has to ascertain correspondency between the given data to be edited and data included in note data that precede and succeed the note data including the given data.
However, generally, if contents of a plurality of types of data are simultaneously displayed for a plurality of note data in the conventionally-known score data displaying/editing apparatus, pictorial figures representative of pitches and sounding periods of note data etc. and pictorial figures representative of other information, such as vibrato information, than the pitches and sounding periods are displayed apart (i.e., at a relatively great distance) from each other. Thus, it was difficult for the user to intuitively grasp what kinds of information are attached to the individual notes.
Some of the conventionally-known score data displaying/editing apparatus have a function of displaying a plurality of types of data, included in note data, near pictorial figures representative of pitches and sounding periods of the note data. However, in such score data displaying/editing apparatus, the plurality of types of data are displayed simultaneously only for one note data at a time, not for a plurality of note data. Therefore, it was difficult for the user to readily grasp, from the display, arranged states, on the time axis, of other information than pitches and sounding periods, e.g. with a view to determining a particular type of expression to be imparted to a note or notes residing at a particular location within a phrase of a certain length.
Further, for some of the data included in the note data, relative positional relationships would become important between a time period when a process instructed by the data should be carried out or an effect instructed by the data should appear and a sounding period designated by the note data. Typical example of such data is one instructing a vibrato for imparting a tone with a vibrating expression. In sounding a certain voice, which position in the sounding period the vibrato should start at is an important factor that governs an impression of the performance given to one or more human listeners. But, the conventionally-known score data displaying/editing apparatus was not constructed to perform any display that allows the user to grasp, in relation to the note sounding period, at which timing a process or effect of a vibrato or the like, instructed by such a type of data, should take place. Therefore, it was not easy for the user to know an impression of a singing performance that would be given to the listeners.
When a singing performance is automatically executed using a singing synthesis apparatus, there can arise a slight deviation between sounding periods indicated by a singing score data set and sounding periods of voices in an actual singing performance. However, in the case where the conventionally-known score data displaying/editing apparatus is used, the user could not ascertain time (or temporal) relationship between the sounding periods indicated by the singing score data set and sounding periods of voices in the actual singing performance.